The Way We Fall

Chapter 174 (Tigris)

TW: Coarse language, v0mit

She sank back against the damned tree, pressing her shaking hands to her face. Roche crashed through the forest, sprinting straight out of the grove and into the darkness. Kai and Aodh's shouts chased her, echoing against the trees.

Tigris sucked in a shallow breath, feeling it hiss between her soft fingertips, so unlike Roche's calloused hands. She couldn't believe she'd let that woman touch her, brush her hands down her back, help her into gowns, card through her hair-

Tigris shuddered through a rush of furious heat that bloomed in her stomach like a flower at the dawn of spring. Her cheeks flushed red as she choked on a foreign tightness in her throat.

Suddenly, Aodh was kneeling beside her, his eyes wild.

"What the hell did you just say to her?" he demanded, giving her a rough shake.

Tigris managed to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth. "I... banished her."

Aodh's eyes bugged out of his head. "Banished her?"

Kai came rushing back from the edges of the bushes, his eyes wide and frantic.

"She's gone!" he gasped out. Tigris closed her eyes, trying to hide the traitorous relief that coursed through her.

Roche was gone.

That meant she wouldn't be burned on a pyre, as the law demanded.

As Tigris should have demanded.

Aodh cursed loudly, running a hand through his cropped hair. He glared down at Tigris through slitted eyes.

"Is this about the man she killed?" he demanded.

The words took Tigris aback. "What?" she gasped, shock smacking her in the face.

Aodh groaned, shaking Tigris by the shoulders. "Look, he was an assassin. He was going to kill you, she had no other choice. I don't even like her, but she saved your goddamn life. You can't be mad at her."

Tigris' jaw dropped. "Roche took down an assassin?"

Roche had saved her life.

And she'd hidden it from her.

Tigris' mind whirled. She braced her head against the tree, feeling the coarse grate of the bark against her scalp. She thought she'd known Roche. It was why she'd let the woman into her life, let her be her maid and... her friend.

She'd thought Roche was her friend.

But she'd lied to her. She'd been using inkblood, practising with it, using it to take down assassins and god knew what else.

"You didn't know?" Aodh pressed, his eyes glowing with concern. "What was it then? What could make you banish Roche of all people?"

Tigris opened her mouth to answer when Kai interrupted, his eyes gleaming intently.

"Was it the creatures she used to get you here?" he asked, his voice strangely tense.

Tigris opened her mouth to deny it, to tell them what she'd learned. But her tongue stuck in her mouth with a painful snag. Because if she told Aodh what Roche truly was, he'd hunt her down as the law demanded.

He'd kill her.

And Tigris would need to support him after letting an inkblood stay close to her for many years. She'd need to stand there and watch Roche be tied up to the pyre. She'd need to watch Roche thrash and struggle, crying out and straining against her bindings as choking dark smoke filled the air. She'd need to watch as Roche's skin began to crack and bubble, burst in a smoky flare of red-